The Royal Opera has been granted £700,000 to "enable them to enter the next phase of their internationally important opera development programme, the first phase of which was enabled by time-limited grant from a philanthropic trust". This refers to the programme formerly funded by John Studzinski's Genesis Foundation, which has now come to an end after four years. The ROH has failed to find another supporter for the work.

Welsh National Opera is given the single biggest grant of £900,000 from ACE, and it also gets a further £300,000 from Arts Council, Wales, meaning a total of £1.2m to "mitigate loss from development funds, box-office income and bank interest". English National Opera gets £750,000 to recognise the "impact of the economic downturn on corporate fundraising".

Other awards, which can be seen in full on ACE's website, include £116,000 to the Ikon Gallery in Birmingam, and £362,572 to the Nottingham Playhouse to offset a loss in income from trusts and foundations.

An ACE spokeswoman said: "It's not a fund for failing arts organisations – it is a fund for well-managed, successful arts organisations which, through no fault of their own, have suffered during the recession."

Two organisations that applied to the fund were unsuccessful: New Writing North and the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham. According to the spokeswoman: "The application by New Writing North to the Sustain fund was not supported as it did not fit the criteria of the funding programme strongly enough and they were unable to demonstrate clearly the impact of the recession."

She added: "The focus of the Sustain application from the Everyman theatre was felt to be for further capital development. As such Everyman were unsuccessful on this occasion."